Authors: Jane Goodger

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Historical

When a Duke Says I Do (3 page)

“On the other side of that huge hedgerow was the lake. It was beautiful and yet somehow so forlorn, as if it hated being surrounded so. I never did find out why that lake was hidden.”

Alexander heard her sigh and the sound of her picking up her book. My God, how long was she going to stay here? All night? He glanced back at her and gave her a pointed look, fighting the urge to tell her to leave him alone.

“I’m bothering you,” she said, sounding completely unrepentant. “To be honest, I find it quite refreshing to talk to someone who doesn’t interrupt. It’s almost as if I’m holding you captive to my conversation.”

Alexander fought a smile, turning back to the wall before she could see. He decided, then and there, that she could talk all night if she wished. No woman had ever told him she liked his silence.

After awhile, her chatter stopped and Alexander was so consumed with his work, he was unaware of how much time had gone by. It wasn’t until he noticed the sky was lightening that he realized he’d worked the entire night. Monsieur would be angry with him, for he’d not be able to sleep and the old man needed him to be attentive. For all his bluster, Monsieur rarely got angry, and when he did, it was like a summer storm, violent and short and soon forgotten. Their relationship had become a careful dance for they both knew how their roles had experienced a subtle shift the day Alexander began doing most of the painting. Alexander didn’t mind the pretense because he loved what he did, was content to create beauty, and knew he would not have been able to charm customers the way Monsieur did.

It was imperative that no one ever discover Alexander was the true artist. The life he’d grown to love so much would end instantly, and a man he loved like a father would be humiliated beyond bearing. Which was why Alexander was angry with himself for working so late; it increased the possibility of discovery. And then he remembered the girl, and his foolish, foolish belief that she would keep his secret. He should have feigned confusion and put his charcoal away, he should have sought his bed and left her alone with her book. What had made him think he could trust her?

He looked back and saw her sleeping form on the small couch, the lamp long out, the book lying next to her hand.
Damn.
It would not do for someone to find her here, with him. He pulled out his watch and saw it was only five in the morning, too early for even the servants to be up and about. He walked over to Miss Stanhope and felt his gut wrench oddly at the vision before him. She wasn’t the most classically beautiful woman he’d seen, but there was something about her, a vulnerability that he understood. She was lonely, so lonely she’d spent the night talking to a man who could not talk back to her. Her gold-tipped lashes lay like delicate shadows on her soft cheek, and her lips, slightly open, were a bit wider than they ought to be. His hand hovered over her shoulder for a moment before he gathered the courage to touch her. He was about to lay a hand on her shoulder, but frowned when he realized his hands were smudged with charcoal and would certainly leave a mark on her pristine white wrap. And so he nudged the entire couch with one knee, hoping the movement would awaken her.

She sat up so quickly, he stumbled back in surprise, letting out a small sound. She pushed her hair from her face and did something so unexpected, he flinched. She smiled, a glorious, heart-wrenching smile. “Hello.”

He backed up another step and nodded. She squinted at the far clock, hidden in the early morning shadows, and pursed her lips. “What time is it?”

He held up his hand, showing her five fingers.

“Goodness. I haven’t slept so long in years.” She looked truly amazed. “How wonderful.” She stood and walked to the mural, letting out a small gasp. “Oh, my. Alexander, is it?”

He nodded.

“You are quite gifted,” she said, staring at his light charcoal drawing. “Truly gifted. It’s precisely as I imagined it. Precisely.” She turned back to him, where he stood as if fastened to the floor. “I must go. Good day.” She walked to the door, but stopped as she touched the handle. “I shan’t tell. A promise is a promise. So, it’s our secret.”

And then, as if it were a common occurrence for a young woman to have spent the night on the couch in a room with a strange man, she simply walked out the door.

Chapter 3

Elsie felt better than she had in memory, and wondered how on earth she’d been able to fall asleep in the ballroom as a strange man worked. Likely because she’d talked herself into exhaustion. Poor man had no doubt wanted to scream to her to stop talking. She actually giggled at the thought.

She went up two flights to the nursery, where her little sister still spent so many hours. Mary was her parents’ last attempt at creating an heir for Mansfield Hall. After Christine died, Mama had suffered several miscarriages, something Elsie had only recently discovered. At the time, she’d only known that her mother was ill and her parents inconsolably sad. But when her mother was close to having Mary, she’d confessed about the anguish of losing so many children, which made this baby so much more a miracle.

Her mother had been nearly forty years old when she’d died just a week after pushing Mary into the world. At least she got to hold her perfect little baby girl before finally drifting away. That was three years ago.

Mary was one of the reasons Elsie was in no hurry for her wedding. Marriage would only take her away from Mansfield, and most especially away from Mary. It was not lost on anyone in the Stanhope household that Elsie was of an age that Mary could have been her own child.

“Look who’s up,” Elsie said, going over to the tiny bed where her sister sat playing with a small rag doll. Mary had the finest toys money could buy, porcelain dolls from France and little German wooden figures, but her sister adored the rag doll appropriately called “Baby.”

“Elsie,” Mary said with a pout. “Look. It’s boken.”

“Baby is broken? Oh, no. Let’s take a look.” Baby did, indeed, have a small tear. “That’s easy to fix. I just need some needle and thread and we’ll have her as good as new in no time at all.”

Elsie handed the doll back to her sister, who held it as if it had been out of her hands for a week. “Come with me to my room and I’ll fetch my sewing kit.” Mary jumped off her bed and held up her hand with the assurance of a child who knows someone will always be there to take it.

On the way out they encountered Mary’s nanny, Miss Lawton. “I’ll take her, Nanny,” Elsie said, ignoring the slight sigh from her employee. “I promise not to fall asleep. I slept wonderfully last night and believe I won’t even need a nap at all today.”

“How wonderful, Miss Elsie,” Miss Lawton said with a little curtsy. Poor Miss Lawton was often asked to help with the search.

Elsie picked her sister up at the stairs, impatient to get to her room and change so they could both go down to the breakfast room. Mary was supposed to eat all meals in the nursery, but Elsie hated sitting in that room alone, day after day. Her father rarely ate breakfast, and if he did, it was a simple roll and slab of ham that he could eat while trekking through the woods in search of lichen.

“What shall we do today, Mary? Shall we play hide and seek with Nanny?”

Mary nodded her head and beamed a smile at her big sister. Mary always hid in the same place and giggled loudly as Elsie went in search of her, which the big sister duly ignored. It was Mary’s favorite game and usually wore her out rather quickly.

“I get to hide first,” Elsie said.

“In the cupboard?”

“We shall see, shan’t we?” Elsie always hid in the cupboard and pretended surprise when Mary found her. She gave Mary an extra squeeze, feeling sadness wash over her, for soon would come a time when she wouldn’t be around to hide in the cupboard and give her little sister hugs.

Life at Mansfield Hall was sedate and unchanging, especially since the death of its mistress. Having Monsieur Desmarais in residence was as much excitement as the old house had had in three years.

And now, just one day after that excitement, came the letter that would alter Elsie’s life forever. She saw it on the silver tray in the entrance hall, that thick velum with a ducal seal. Her stomach plunged, for she knew what it was. She was twenty-two, Lord Hathwaite was twenty-five, and it was past time they married. Now the time had come.

With a hand that trembled, Elsie picked up the message and broke the seal, praying it was an innocuous invitation and not the dreaded summons she believed it to be. She handled all the family’s correspondence of late, for her father was too distracted by his studies to worry about such mundane matters as invitations and bills. She’d been running the household for years now, without complaint. But at that moment, she wished she could simply hand off that letter to someone else, someone who would deal with whatever it said. She had a sudden and sharp longing for her mother.

The letter was short and to the point. The wedding day was set for May, the announcement to be made at her birthday ball. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked around at her beloved home as if it were one of the last times she’d ever see it. She didn’t want to leave and be mistress of that huge palace the Duke of Kingston presided over. She wanted her country home, with its warm yellow stones and overgrown gardens.

“Oh, dash it,” she said, wiping away her tears. How silly she was being. She’d known since she was a child that this day would come. If she was honest with herself, she should be grateful that it hadn’t come far sooner. Most young women would have traded places with her in an instant, for Lord Hathwaite was not only to be a duke, he was also rather handsome. He was infinitely polite, a fine dancer, a good conversationalist. And boring beyond tears.

She didn’t love him and he certainly didn’t love her; she doubted he could produce such an emotion for her. Even though she knew she was probably being unfair to a man she truly didn’t know that well, she’d never seen so much as a flicker of interest in his dark eyes about anything. She was merely the conclusion of an agreement made years ago between their fathers. It wasn’t as if such an unemotional match were unheard of. In fact, she could not think of one couple she knew who could say they’d had a love match, other than, of course, her own mother and father.

She remembered talking to her mother about Lord Hathwaite, about how she might come to love him. And if she didn’t, at least he seemed like a kind man who would treat her well. What did she truly know of him? She’d danced with him a handful of times, sat next to him at a total of three dinner parties, gone to the opera and sat nervously in the ducal box ten feet away from her intended.

When she’d visited Warbeck Abbey as a child, she’d spent most of her time with her sister, not the solemn little boy who lived there and rarely was allowed out to play. As far as she knew, they had nothing in common other than the fact that their fathers had once agreed to pair them up over some political matter that at the time was of utmost importance. It all had something to do with trade and China.

“May the tenth. I shall become a marchioness on May the tenth,” she whispered.

Oscar Wilkinson, Marquess of Hathwaite and future Duke of Kingston, emptied his stomach into his chamber pot in anticipation of an audience with his father whilst cursing the bad luck of having two dead older brothers. Oscar would have been more than happy to have had the option of military service; it seemed a far less hazardous thing to face any enemy than to face his father. But His Grace would have none of it. Having lost two sons already, and at a very young age, his father would do nothing to put his final heir in jeopardy.

“Sir, your father awaits.” These nervous words came from the long-suffering Mr. Farnsworth, whose face seemed to sag more every year as if His Grace’s ill treatment of his loyal secretary were dragging him down.

Oscar rinsed out his mouth and gazed at his reflection in the mirror, hating what he saw: a frightened little boy. Damned if he was going to show it. His father could no longer have him whipped, could no longer touch him with anything but his scathing verbiage. Oscar shouldn’t let it bother him, but it did. Lucky dead brothers.

Of course, Oscar knew nothing of them, only that they had both died when he was three. He had no memory of either boy, having spent the first four years of his life in the nursery. Henry was the oldest, the shining star, the only child his father had ever been kind to. Henry had stood up to his father like a man, had been more ready at twelve years old to be duke than Oscar was now at age twenty-five. At least that was what he’d been told time and again.

Oscar dragged a hand through his hair. “Walker,” he shouted, and was gratified that his valet was at the ready to make his appearance impeccable. Walker, grimacing, brushed his suit, fixed his necktie, and gave his shoes one last quick buffing before nodding his head.

“Wish me luck,” he said.

“Good luck, sir,” Walker said with heartfelt sincerity. It was a sad thing, indeed, when a man’s servants pitied him, Oscar thought disparagingly. He knew what this meeting was about and had been dreading it for nearly his entire life. There could be no other reason to meet with his father, for he’d done nothing wrong and nothing right. The only thing left to discuss was his imminent marriage or the duke’s own death, which, unfortunately, did not seem to be in the offing. The man was sixty-two but could easily have passed for someone ten years younger.

Oscar took a deep breath and headed out the door, his face set. It would not do to have his father sense his fear of what this meeting would bring. Hell, marrying Elsie Stanhope should bring nothing but joy—and likely would have if he’d had the opportunity to make a single decision about the girl. He didn’t object to her, per se, he simply objected to the fact that every detail of his life thus far had been carefully, tediously mapped out by his tyrannical father. Right down to their wedding trip. No doubt the old man would hover over his bed on their wedding night, telling him where to put what.

He’d not been allowed the raucous excesses of youth, but rather had been constantly under the careful watch of His Grace. The only time he’d ever gotten any freedom was the single summer he’d spent with his former schoolmates drinking and carousing. What a glorious summer it had been. It had lasted approximately two weeks before His Grace got word of his activities and brought him home. He hadn’t
lived
yet, and now he was to be shackled for the rest of his life to a girl who was about as exciting as a piece of lightly cooked toast.

A footman stood sentry outside his father’s offices and Oscar requested permission to enter, as he was always forced to do in this house.

“One moment, Lord Hathwaite.” The efficient servant disappeared into the room, only to appear moments later, opening the door wide enough for him to make entry into his father’s lair.

His father was obviously waiting for him, for he sat in his leather-bound chair, glowering darkly. Oscar gave his father the bow he was due.

“You wanted to see me, Your Grace?”

The duke snapped open his watch, no doubt placed on his desk like a prop in a badly written play. “I wanted to see you ten minutes ago, Hathwaite.”

His father never called him by his Christian name, and Oscar never called the man with whom he shared lineage Father. They treated each other like acquaintances—who didn’t much like one another.

Edgar Wilkinson, the seventh Duke of Kingston, eyed his son with open disdain. “You need a better valet,” he said finally.

Oscar tried not to let his scathing tone lower him, but it was a difficult task. Despite everything, a sick and weak part of him still strove to please this man. He hated that most of all.

“Take a seat.”

Oscar eyed the uncomfortable and rather small chair indicated by his father and stifled a grimace. He longed to lounge in it insolently, to put on an air of boredom, but he simply lacked the courage to do so. He sat, back straight, shoes planted firmly and flatly on the floor in front of him and awaited his father’s pronouncement.

“The wedding is set for May the tenth. It should be the event that launches the Season. Your fiancée is having a birthday celebration in September and we will formally announce the engagement then.”

Oscar felt his stomach give yet another sickening twist. He had been right about this meeting, so he didn’t know why it should shock him so much to hear those words.

“Have you informed Elsie, Your Grace?” It was such a small victory, to see how calling his future wife by her nickname irked his father.

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